What we do

A community anchor for over 30 years, The Child & Family Network Centers (CFNC) delivers quality education to Alexandria’s at-risk kids. Spearheaded by a group of mothers living in public housing in 1984, CFNC is the ONLY Alexandria, Va. nonprofit providing free quality, bi-lingual preschool and family support for our area’s working poor—members of our community. Not to be confused with Head Start, (the free federal pre-K program for our nation’s most needy) we support the working poor–a critical audience who would otherwise fall through the cracks in the system.

Today we’re teaching 138 of Alexandria’s kids–providing early education, family support services and health services.

Early Education

CFNC’s eight preschool classrooms operate from September to June, from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm with optional after care available from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Five of eight preschool classrooms are accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and all teachers implement the HighScope curriculum, which is nationally recognized as especially effective for at-risk children in multicultural settings. The curriculum includes daily activities in the areas of language, art, dramatic play, music, science, and math, which are designed to foster growth and creativity within each child in many areas of development. Science and Movement/Music are also taught through hands-on activities that create excitement for the discovery process and reinforce arithmetic concepts, such as numbers, enumeration, and timing. Each day is an adventure that provides English language and cognitive development through cooperative play, arts and crafts, science and discovery activities, stories, and music.

FAMILY SERVICES

Bilingual social workers support parents as they work toward self- sufficiency and gain parenting skills to support their children’s education. Social workers strengthen families through case management, home-visits, and a variety of parental education workshops ranging from healthy parenting to nutrition. During the school year, our social workers screen children for developmental delays, hold weekly social skills groups for children exhibiting challenging behavior, and offer a variety of events to prepare families for kindergarten in the public school system.

HEALTH SERVICES

CFNC’s health services enable parents to support the healthy development of their children. Social workers assist families in accessing community-based services and ensure children enter kindergarten having completed the appropriate physicals, vaccinations, and medical screenings. CFNC provides hearing, vision and dental screenings and refers all children for follow-up care as needed, ensuring issues are resolved before children enter kindergarten. Further, our holistic health and wellness services also combat obesity by incorporating healthy eating and nutrition, as well as physical activity each school day.

Follow Us

Federal and Military employees can support a low-income child’s education by contributing to the Child and Family Network Centers through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC)! Just remember our CFC #86801.

Questions? Contact Anna Shults at ashults@cfnc-online.org or by phone at (703) 836-0214.